Psalms in Red
By L.J. Lewis
Last night I dreamt of Psalms in red,
along the beaten path;
which in tones, long mad from desperation –
delivered me instruction.
To navigate the gutters
bathed beneath the weeping moon,
of skies that choke on neon smoke
and of sickly city sidewalks haunted
by the ghosts of paper men.
And of Venus scathed by marble eyes,
who on track marks can read fortunes,
before, like bedbugs flee from vision –
she's retreating from the sunrise,
satiated, be it only just for now.
They spelled out where the buck had stopped –
the spot where love had died;
and where, with bloody callused palms,
Atlas left the Earth abandoned
in some dingy downtown barroom.
They pointed out the spiders crawling
between the cracks at dawn,
in places long forgotten,
where anomie once dictated hallowed writings on the wall. Last night I dreamt of Psalms in red, and I awoke to church bells ringing singing hymns in praise of juxtaposition, regarding how sometimes, maybe – even in Hell,one can still find beauty.
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